The Ten Doors

5.1 The Ten Doors

The corridor asked: these ten masteries the bodhisattva gains within the "immovable"—where is their freedom; and why are they still not the Buddha's? This chapter answers.

First set out the ten doors, one by one. The Avataṃsaka's Ten Grounds says that, having accomplished the body of knowing, the eighth-ground bodhisattva:

Having accomplished such a body of knowing, gains mastery over life, over mind, over wealth, over karma, over birth, over vow, over resolve, over psychic power, over knowledge, and over the Dharma. Gaining these ten masteries, he becomes one of inconceivable knowing, of measureless knowing, of vast knowing, of knowing that nothing can break.

Life, mind, wealth, karma, birth, vow, resolve, psychic power, knowledge, Dharma—mastery in each of these ten. (The translating masters' wording differs a little—some render "life" as "lifespan," "wealth" as "livelihood," and the order varies slightly; that is a matter of translation, and here the Avataṃsaka's wording is used, without snagging on the terms.)

The opposite of mastery is fear

"Mastery," said in the abstract, is easily heard as "doing whatever one likes." The canon gives a fine way in that brings it down to the ground: these ten masteries serve "to counter ten fears." The Daśabhūmika-vyākhyāna says:

[The bodhisattva,] by the threefold mastery-conduct in the container-world, the world of beings, and the world of awakened knowing, gains the ten masteries … these ten masteries counter ten fears: first, the fear of death; second, the fear of the stain of affliction; third, the fear of poverty; fourth, the fear of evil karma; fifth, the fear of evil destinies; sixth, the fear of not getting what is sought; seventh, the fear of slandering the Dharma; eighth, the fear of not surviving; ninth, the fear of "how, oh how?"; tenth, the fear of the majesty of the assembly.

This breaks open the real sense of "mastery": its opposite is fear. A person fears death; fears poverty; fears that he will fall into evil; carries the dread of "what on earth am I to do?"; quails before a crowd … —these ten fears are just where a person is "un-free" in these ten matters. And the ten masteries the bodhisattva gains are precisely these ten fears, undone one by one: with mastery over life, death can no longer fence him in (he can abide for inexpressible eons); with mastery over wealth, poverty can no longer fence him in; with mastery over the Dharma, the dread of "do I really understand, am I right?" can no longer fence him in. The ten doors are the places ten fears had locked; the ten masteries are the power to open all ten.

It is like a person shut behind ten locked doors. Every door he cannot pass—this one bolted, that one bolted too, each a "cannot get through" of fear. Now he gains ten matching keys: one opens each, all ten open in turn, the ten fears undone in turn, and he comes and goes freely among the ten doors. The ten masteries undoing the ten fears is just this—mastery is not some power conjured out of nowhere, but these ten matters that fenced and frightened a person fencing and frightening him no more.

These ten doors all open toward beings

One more thing matters: these ten masteries are, in each, not enjoyed behind a closed door but "displayed toward beings." See the Daśabhūmika-vyākhyāna mark each function:

He gains mastery over life—sustaining life for inexpressible eons; mastery over mind—entering the knowing of measureless samādhis; mastery over things—sustaining and displaying the measureless adornments of all worlds; mastery over karma—displaying karmic recompense in this life and in lives to come; mastery over birth—displaying birth throughout all worlds; mastery over vow—at his wish, in any buddha-land and any time, displaying the attaining of awakening; mastery over conviction—displaying the buddhas filling all worlds; mastery over psychic power—displaying every kind of transformation in all buddha-lands; mastery over the Dharma—displaying the illumination of dharma-gates without bound or center; mastery over knowledge—displaying the Tathāgata's powers, fearlessnesses, distinctive qualities, the marks and signs, and awakening.

Note the word that recurs through the string: "displaying." Of the ten doors, each is tied to a "displaying"—shown to beings, manifested for their sake. Door by door: mastery over life is to abide for "inexpressible eons"—to stay long in the world to deliver beings; mastery over mind is to enter the knowing of measureless samādhis; mastery over wealth (the texts also render it "things") is to display the measureless adornments of all worlds; mastery over karma is to display karmic recompense—setting cause and effect before beings; mastery over birth is to display birth throughout all worlds—taking birth wherever beings need delivering; mastery over vow is, at his wish, in any buddha-land and any time, to display the attaining of buddhahood; mastery over resolve (conviction) is to display the buddhas filling all worlds; mastery over psychic power is to display every kind of transformation in all buddha-lands; mastery over the Dharma is to set forth plainly the dharma-gates without bound or center; mastery over knowledge is to display the Buddha's ten powers, fearlessnesses, distinctive qualities, marks and signs, and awakening.

Ten doors laid open, and not one is "cultivated for himself." Abiding long is to deliver more beings; displaying adornment is to draw beings in; setting the Dharma plainly is to teach beings; even displaying the Buddha's powers and fearlessnesses is to inspire beings' faith. So these ten masteries are not "a mastery for one's own enjoyment" (abide a little longer, wield a little more power, enjoyed by oneself); they are "a mastery opened toward beings"—ten doors, each opening toward beings. This takes up Part Three's word—altruism is mastery. The ten masteries are just "altruism is mastery," coming forth gate by gate across ten doors.

And this "displaying" is displayed without strain. The last part said the eighth ground is called the "Immovable ground"; the Daśabhūmika-vyākhyāna, glossing the name, gives one sense as "cannot be broken" and one as "the effort-free ground"—the path won before rouses of itself here, with no more deliberate exertion. So the displaying of these ten doors is "effort-free," spontaneous: without the bodhisattva's deliberate rousing, the benefit to others of the ten gates wells up of itself (like the boat of the last chapter, entered into the current, needing no oar, the water carrying it on). And because the Immovable ground "cannot be broken," the mastery of these ten doors "cannot be broken" either—the Avataṃsaka says just this: gaining these ten masteries, he becomes "one of knowing that nothing can break."

A measure of plainness: this is still the "bodhisattva's" ten masteries

Said this far, the most crucial measure of plainness must be set out. However bright these ten doors, they are still the bodhisattva's causal-stage ten masteries, not the Buddha's.

The canon's wording here is most careful. The Daśabhūmika-vyākhyāna says:

This bodhisattva, having gained these bodhisattva's ten masteries …

"This bodhisattva, gains these bodhisattva's ten masteries"—in one phrase, "bodhisattva" weighted twice: it is a bodhisattva who gains a bodhisattva's ten masteries. That doubling pins it to the causal stage. The text does not merely say "gains ten masteries"; it insists on "gains these bodhisattva's ten masteries," precisely to mark these as the masteries of this stretch of the bodhisattva's road, not yet the Buddha's. And at the fruit stage there is a separate set—the Avataṃsaka, elsewhere, opens a gate of its own, "the buddhas, the world-honored ones, have ten kinds of mastery"; the Buddha's ten masteries and the eighth-ground bodhisattva's ten masteries are set out separately in the canon, two lists, not one thing. Plainer still is the line quoted last part: the Buddhas say to the eighth-ground bodhisattva in person that the buddha's ten powers, fearlessnesses, eighteen distinctive qualities, "you have not yet attained"—even of the eighth-ground bodhisattva who has gained these ten doors, the Buddhas still remind him to his face, "you have not yet arrived," and still urge him "not to stop and let go at the threshold of this forbearance."

So at this part the book holds a line: to mark clearly that these ten masteries are "of the causal stage"—and there to stop. It does not weigh them against the Buddha's ten masteries for higher and lower, nor join up "how the bodhisattva's ten lead on to the Buddha's ten." Why not? Because that weighing and joining is the edge the whole book touches only at its close (how the bodhisattva's mastery and the arhat's are finally to be weighed side by side), and a matter left to the author to adjudicate. This part does only its own share: to mark clearly the "causal-stage" standing of the eighth ground's ten masteries—however concrete, however complete, still the bodhisattva's causal-stage seal, not buddhahood. Reading "causal stage, apart from the Tathāgata's" here, take it as a statement of the fact that the two are at different path-positions—not a verdict of "higher or lower," nor a joining already made.

Onward

Gather the chapter into a sentence: the ten masteries are where the bodhisattva's mastery is called out item by item—over life, mind, wealth, karma, birth, vow, resolve, psychic power, knowledge, and Dharma, undoing one by one the ten fears that fenced and frightened a person, and displaying them, gate by gate, to beings, without strain. It is the most concrete seal of the bodhisattva's mastery; and its doubled "this bodhisattva's ten masteries," the Buddha's separate set of ten, and the admonition "you have not yet attained"—all three mark the same thing: this is still the causal stage.

But here a strange question rises. The eighth-ground bodhisattva is already so free—mastery over life, mind, wealth, karma, every one; the ten fears undone; acting, he goes by himself, and cannot slide back—why does he still not stop? Why do the Buddhas still so urgently urge him, "do not rest; rise; go on"? A person already this free might well settle here. Yet he will not. The next part looks at this "will not stop" to the bottom—he stops neither in birth-and-death nor in nirvāṇa; the ground of this "abiding in neither" is called the nirvāṇa of no fixed abode.